Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (90 page)

“I
am
sending a report, my lord baron.”

“But not the nature of those demon-beasts,” Fraser’s
voice countered.  “They need to come prepared, captain.  Or else they will fare
no better.”

“The Seventeenth Outpost will be sending their forces
to aid us in…in plugging this breach in our border,” the captain stated
decisively.  “They will arrive by late morning, or noon latest.”

“Do you intent to hold back the facts?” Atcheron
demanded.

“Facts?  My lord baron, I am charged with holding this
position in our defensive line.  My duty demands I report on any change in
conditions, not that I send the entire southern command into a frenzy by
passing on unverified rumors and wild stories.”  Atcheron and Fraser both
started with hot retorts which the captain overrode.  “
I
have no
evidence of these…these
creatures
other than your word, gentlemen.  And
while I have no reason to doubt your word, I
cannot
disrupt the army’s
structure solely on unverified information.”

“How much verification do you need?” thundered
Fraser.  “Look at our men!  They are the lucky ones!”

“I have no doubt that you encountered a substantial
opponent, lieutenant.  Perhaps an armed rebellion force out from Tullainia, or
a squad of whatever militants is causing the ruckus over there.  The other
outposts will arrive soon to help us push them back across where they belong.”

“Are you calling me a liar?  Are you calling the baron
a deceiver?”

“A…no, I am certainly not!  I am sure…” the voice
wavered, plainly uncertain about everything.  “I am sure there is an
explanation behind whatever you thought you saw.  Maybe…maybe a strange spell
that befuddled you.”  A brief silence met this comment, followed by the captain
resuming, his tone changing from uncertainty to a religious zealot preaching
his faith’s principles.  “Yes!  I am sure that explains what you thought you
saw.  A spell to confuse your enemies and make them believe they see phantoms
while your men slaughter them with ease!  A despicable strategy, but once you
see through it, it can be countered.”

Atcheron, outraged, shouted, “Those were no misty
vapors that killed my men, captain!  Those were demons straight from
Vernilock’s parlor!”

The captain replied, his voice firm with conviction,
“I am sure you believe that to be so, my lord baron.  Ah, when we drive them
back tomorrow, then we shall see the heart of the matter, yes?”  He obviously
thought that he would be the one saying ‘
I told you so
’ to the baron,
rather than the other way around.  “Have your able-bodied men ready to march
out by tomorrow noon, my lord baron, and yours too, lieutenant.  You will
deploy with our forces.”

“You cursed fool!” Fraser yelled.  “If you don’t send
for the nearest force regiment, it will be your last mistake!”

“I need to change my dispatches.  We need a magic user
who can counter this confusion spell.”  He completely ignored the council.

Rustling from within sounded, then the captain strode
purposefully past the canvas alley’s mouth.  Fraser and Atcheron stepped into
view a moment later.  They both stopped to stare after the outpost’s commander
in disbelief.  The baron ground his nails into his palm as Fraser clutched his
forehead.  Atcheron departed, fists still balled.

Lieutenant Fraser remained a moment longer, an
apparent headache paining him.  He noticed the alley and the men crouched
within.  His eyes took special note of Marik before darting to the thin tent
wall.  Fraser squared his shoulders and stepped into the alley.

Marik spoke before his lieutenant could approach any
further, already knowing what the question would be.  “I didn’t sense anything. 
If there was magic being woven there, I didn’t feel it at all.” 
Not that I
necessarily would have,
he thought.
  If the magic wasn’t magecraft, I
might not have sensed anything.  But I think I would have known anyway, and
Colbey knew far too much about them for it all to have been a hallucination.
 
“And they have auras.  Illusions don’t have auras.”

Fraser pursed his lips.  “I didn’t think there had
been anything like that.”  He considered, then said, “Rest up.  Tomorrow is
going to be hell.”

“Yes, sir,” Marik whispered while Fraser left.  The
others had long since drifted into slumber where they sat, Dietrik adopting his
usual huddled sleeping form.

He listened to the outpost prepare for next day.  Most
men returned to their tents for whatever rest they could grab before the
march.  None of it seemed real.  Nothing about the soldier camp seemed solid
after the day’s unreality.  Hopefully it would look better in the morning.

Marik sat in the corner formed from a crate and his
pack, his blanket doing little to fend off the winter cold.  When he woke,
would it be to find it all a dream?  That the march to Lysendra’s barony still
lay before them?  That would be nice, but that would require falling asleep
first.  To fall asleep, and put an end to this strange nightmare by awakening.

Exhausted, he tried to summon enough strength to drop
into slumber.

Sleep eluded Marik all night.  He spent the entire
time wriggling and shifting on the hard ground, constantly searching for a
comfortable position that would allow him rest…until he finally awoke.  Heavy
eyes struggled to see through gummy lids.  However much slumber he had actually
stolen, he’d spent it dreaming about wanting to fall asleep.  Exhaustion sapped
his strength.  It would be a bad day.

Proof of that came soon enough.  Dietrik still huddled
beside him.  Cork sprawled across the narrow alley’s width.  Wyman had woken
earlier and left along with the Third Unit man.  Marik’s bleary gaze put the
light at roughly three candlemarks after dawn when Sloan abruptly appeared.

“Still sleeping?”  The Fourth Unit’s sergeant sounded
neither light nor harsh, simply flat as usual.  “We’re to move out shortly.”

“Already?”  Marik sounded drunk.

“We’re forming up at the outpost’s ass-end.  Get over
there.”

Sloan moved on to wherever the next Fourth Unit member
might be tucked away.  Marik poked at Dietrik’s shoulder, expecting the lengthy
prod his friend usually required.  Dietrik shot upward with a startled
exclamation, hands flailing.

Marik cringed away until Dietrik became aware of where
he was.  Any other time he might have chided him, or teased him throughout day
at the very least.  He felt all too aware of what must have chased his close
friend from his halfworld fantasies to find the reaction amusing.

“Get it together,” he commented, and kicked at Cork’s
shoulder.  “We have to move out soon.”

“Back to bloody Kingshome, if we had a feather’s
weight of brains,” Dietrik mumbled.  “Off to fetch the Fourteenth, are we?”

“Only if we were still dreaming.  The captain wants to
go have a look at the demons personally.”

“What?  Is he out of his tree?”  Dietrik stared,
astounded.  Cork mumbled indistinguishably as he rubbed the sleep from his
eyelids.

“Didn’t you hear the argument last night?”

“After Glynn trodded off I stopped paying attention to
all the hubbub.  I needed to sleep.”

“We all needed to sleep,” Cork stated.  “A battle like
that one yesterday is a serious drain on a fighter’s stamina.  That’s why we’re
so hungry right now as well.”

Marik ignored Cork, his obvious words making him
uncomfortably aware of the gnawing ember within his stomach.  “The captain
wants to confirm our sightings before he risks sending such a bizarre report to
his superiors.”

Dietrik was lost for words.  Cork nodded, adding,
“He’s a career man, the captain.  He can’t do anything to risk—”

“Oh, shut up!” Dietrik snapped.  Cork, looking
startled, did so.  “I don’t like this, mate.  Not one whit.  He wants to go
back to the pass?”

“Apparently.”

Dietrik sighed long, deep, a haunted soul.  “The
benefit of being a mercenary is that we can quit on it whenever we want.  I
don’t want to quit the band, but…going back there like this…”

“Another outpost is coming with us.  The Seventeenth. 
Probably we will leave as soon as they arrive.  If it’s as late in the morning
as it feels, they could arrive within the mark, if we aren’t supposed to join
them on the way.”

“That makes me feel a touch better, but I still don’t
fancy it.”

“Are you serious, Dietrik?  Will you actually leave
the band rather than face those things?”

Dietrik stood, stretching the aches from his muscles. 
“I do not want to, but those things scare me, mate.  I can’t go knocking over
walls with my bare hands when I need to, like you can.  All I have is my
rapier, and that’s not an effective weapon against a rampaging bull.”

Cork’s interest perked up while listening to Dietrik. 
“Could you do that?”  Before Marik opened his mouth, Cork charged onward. 
“Hey, if you can knock down a wall, then you could sweep away those demons,
right?  Why don’t you use your magic to kill them for us?”

“I
tried
that yesterday,” Marik replied hotly, 
“and nearly got my neck broken!  Don’t count on me!  I’m not a mage!”

But Cork’s question slapped him across the face.  He
had used his strength working in an attempt to kill the beasts, mostly in the
hopes that it might bolster his shieldmates’ morale as much as to fight
alongside them.  It had never occurred to him to strike with his etheric orb,
which would surely have been more effective against their thick hides.  Why? 
True, he was no mage, yet the thought had never so much as formed!

These things were beasts, animals if not actual
summoned Devils.  Warriors they were not!  His pride, which demanded he meet
steel with honest steel, hardly insisted he behead a chicken destined for his
cook fire with his sword, nor that he use it to slaughter a pig for roasting.

Cork looked confused.  Marik did not care.  Why should
he explain anything to the braggart?  He stood and stretched as well, facing
Dietrik.  “As soon as the captain sees those monsters, he’ll run as fast as he
can with us dangling from his reins.”

“I hope so.”  Apprehension still stabbed at Dietrik. 
“I’ve risked my life before this, but I’ve never cast it into the wind.”  He
stuffed his blanket into his pack before trudging from the canvas alley.  Marik
took the quiet fatalism to mean that Dietrik would stick it out a little
further before deciding the Crimson Kings were no longer his best career
choice.

He followed with his pack slung over his shoulder. 
They kept their words to a minimum.  Each still struggled to come to terms with
the previous day’s events.  The outpost’s cook tent refused to give them
breakfast on the excuse that supplies had already been drawn by the mercenary
squad.  This soured their moods further while they shuffled to the tent row’s
eastern end where the four units slowly gathered.

A large pot had been bullied from the quartermaster. 
It hung suspended from a spit over a sizable fire.  The smell of boiling oats
dampened Marik’s enthusiasm.  He had grown to loath army porridge during the
Nolier campaign.  Dietrik grunted a withering comment only half-heard.  Marik
caught enough to understand Dietrik asked the gods why army fare kept coming
back to haunt his life despite his efforts to leave it behind.

They ate without paying the food much attention.  The
fare would supply them with energy, serving its purpose.  It would never be
remembered fondly.  Their movements were rote, their arms dropping to the bowl,
lifting spoons in nearly perfect time.

Men were forming ranks in the main row close to the
command tent.  Atcheron, with his surviving men led by Riley, was given a place
near the fore, close to where the outpost captain would ride.  No doubt meant
as an honor position in the column, it only drew sickening attention to how few
of his and Lysendra’s men were fit enough to take part in the march.  They were
a single apple sitting forlornly beside the freshly-picked barrel, full to its
brim from the orchard.

Sloan spoke briefly with Fraser, then stood close to
where the Fourth sat eating desolately.  He said nothing.  Marik took the
chance to study their ranks and estimate yesterday’s damage.  It amazed him to
find almost every man he knew.  The Fourth alone had lost only four men, with
the other units only about as badly off.

How could that possibly be?  He reviewed the order of
events.  The mercenaries had primarily been to the rear in Atcheron’s fast
march to the pass.  The bodies littering the slope had mostly been guardsmen,
slain while the beasts slaughtered their way down from above.  All the worst
damage had been suffered by Lysendra, followed by Atcheron.

And although that horrible battle had seemed to last
for days, it must have only raged bare minutes before they fled.  Very little
light had been left to them upon arriving at the pass, and they could still see
with bare eyes during their escape.

Time had turned fluid again.  It always did during
life-or-death battles.  An old saying proclaimed that only time and man’s stupidity
were eternal.  These odd slippages refuted that.  He wondered if anyone had
ever studied the phenomenon before, and that brought Shalla to mind.  Yes,
people had studied time in depth, but had her peaceful sect ever been exposed
to time’s peculiarities in mortal battle?

Sloan’s shout yanked Marik from his drifting
thoughts.  He’d been in a downward spiral, on the verge of falling asleep where
he sat.  Marik slapped at his cheeks, wishing for a water barrel to splash his
face from, then cleaned his bowl as best he could with a handful of snow.

The Ninth Squad gathered, the crowds loosely organized
by unit and unlike the ridged soldier lines further up the row.  They left the
porridge remains in the iron pot for the quartermaster to clean up.  If he
wanted it back, he could come collect it.  It was his pot after all.

Nearly every soldier from the Eighteenth Outpost would
form this column, clustered in twin rectangles holding one-hundred men each. 
Atcheron led his small force at the head while Fraser led the Kings at the
rear.  Four squads in all with the outpost captain reigning supreme.

As customary with many army officers, the captain sent
messengers to each individual squad to inform both the leader and the men of
the proposed plan.  Despite every fighter present already knowing what the
captain meant to do, Marik watched a man ride to Fraser and pass words before
raising his voice.  He had long since ceased questioning this oddity during his
last encounter with the Galemaran army.  Not every officer indulged the
practice, yet it was common with the officers who subscribed wholeheartedly to
army doctrine.  Landon believed it to be a holdover from the long wars during
the Unification, where battle carnage could rage unchecked or take such a high
toll in lives that an under-captain thirty notches down the chain of command
could suddenly discover
he
was the only officer left.  At such a time,
it would be vital that he, or even men lower, be aware of what the orders were.

“Our company is to move out westward, toward
Armonsfield.  Along the way we will join with…”

Marik paid the cry no heed.  He focused on his
shieldmates.  Sloan stood five feet before them, hand resting on his strange
squared swordgrip as usual.  Wyman stood to Dietrik’s right, Churt a step behind
the silent man.  No doubt the swordsman would provide cover for Churt as he
reloaded his crossbow.  Edwin had taken a place behind Floroes to Wyman’s other
side for much the same purpose.

Colbey had drifted, apparently by chance though he
very much doubted that, to Marik’s left side.  The scout looked indecently
fresh, the fact reminding him of the stamina technique.  Annoyed, he invoked
it, blaming the oversight on his sleep-deprived mind.  Marik felt most of his
exhaustion melt away under the fresh energy saturating his body.

He held it in place for a moment before releasing it. 
Only a fraction of his weariness returned.  Good.  Maybe he could face the
march ahead without sleepwalking.

Colbey cast a single glance sideways, apparently aware
that Marik had just used the technique he had taught.  Marik expected a
disparaging comment on his skills.  Instead Colbey acted far more interested in
the crier’s words than the messenger warranted.  The scout kept his gaze locked
forward, hand twisting back and forth on his sword hilt.  Looking down, Marik
saw he stood mostly on his toes, heals bobbing up and down, rocking in battle
readiness.  Odd.

“…until we can form an accurate assessment on the
nature of the opposition which—w-what?  What was that?”

Marik froze.  The messenger whirled in the direction
from which the noise had arisen.  Every man in the Ninth Squad did likewise,
except Colbey, who cracked a broad grin and crouched lower, still rocking.

There was no mistaking that sound.  It portended evil
tidings.  The demon-beasts had not remained in Armonsfield.  No.  They had
followed.  Followed them here.

Well,
Marik
thought sardonically when the bellowing chorus-roar rose a second time,
now
the good captain will be able to see in person whether these are delusions or
reality.

*        *        *        *        *

They came hard, and they came fast.  The lead groups
burst from the northern tree line at a loping run, the only warning the
increased volume of their howling.

Atcheron wasted no time after the initial roars
reached them.  He ordered his group to fall back.  Riley herded his men down
the row until they rejoined the Crimson Kings.  Whatever objections the outpost
captain might have shouted were lost under the rising bestial voices.

This left the captain alone with his soldiers to face
the first assault.  From the trees they exploded, first a few, then a dozen,
then a wave that crashed into the northwestern corner.  Tents collapsed,
trampled under massive bare feet sporting four root-like toes capped with sharp
claws.  The odd beast became tangled.  Most continued loping to smash against
the Galemaran soldiers.

Marik watched their advance into the ranks ahead. 
They were no less terrifying in the clear daylight than yesterday.  He studied
them closely, distinguishing the peculiarities in their composition that had
escaped his notice before.